Editor's note: As Lenny Russo, chef/owner of Heartland Restaurant & Farm Direct Market in St. Paul, travels around Slovenia, he is being followed by a film crew for a TV series in Slovenia. You can see more pictures at the Slovenia national TV website. The text is in Slovene but there are more pictures and, of course, links to Table Talk, the Star Tribune Taste blog.

Gostilna Krištof is located in Predoslje, which is a village in the municipalty of Kranj, which lies in the Upper Carniola Region of Slovenia. The gostilna has been the family for hundreds of years although not always in its present location.

Klobasa is the Slovenian version of kielbasa, and it was outstanding (all photos by Christopher Wurst). We also tasted the gostilna's hot sauces which won awards in competition in New York City. One was so hot it made my ears hurt. Everything there is made from scratch, including the breads. In addition, we were treated to what Krištof called Slovenian sashimi, which was sea bass smoked under glass using an ingenious mechanical pump of his own design and served on spoons with Slovenian olive oil, trout roe and tobikko. His menu is definitely worth taking a look at, and I venture to say that it the best restaurant we have experienced so far in Slovenia.

Next, we traveled to Bled where I was rowed to Bled Island by Olympic rowing medalist and six-time competitor Istok Čop. Once there, I climbed the hundred steps to the Church of St. Mary and rang the bell, which tradition says will grant your wish. I wished for spring, and I was sort of temporarily granted that as the temperature in Ljubljana reached 53 degree yesterday with partially clearing skies. It is winter again today with highs reaching only into the low 40s with a cold rain

After that, I drove to Restavracija 1906 where I met with Chef Uroš Štefelin. He prepared for me his take on traditional Slovenian veal liver, which was served in glass and layered with polenta, potato spuma, black truffles and brin cheese crisps. It was delicious. Then he presented the traditional Tepka pear, which a dried heirloom pear that had been reconstituted and dipped in chocolate ganache. We exchanged White Earth Nation wild rice and Tepka Schnapps.

Next we drove high into the lower Julian Alps. I have been driving a brand new little red Fiat 500, which proved remarkably up to the task given condition of the roads once we lost pavement and replaced it with ice, snow and ruts. We stopped in Radovna at Gostilna Psnak where I toured the farm and dined on blood sausage with sauerkraut and quark krape. Krape are made form buckwheat sometimes mixed with ground Tepka pear flour. These were 100 percent buckwheat and stuffed with the farm's own quark.

Everything there is product of the farm, and it is all organically raised. They have an aviary, the doors of which are painted with the family history of the farm, which was purchased by the father of Mr. Psnak, whom we met later. He is now 84 years old and no longer working the farm, but Mr. Psnak has been working it six days a week every week for the last 20 years from 2 a.m. until 8 p.m. The farm has been a working farm for over 400 years. They also have what is called a black kitchen, which is essentially a smokehouse that has been blackened by the smoke and where we saw hams hanging as they were being cured and smoked. Again, we left them with some White Earth wild rice.
More later. -- Lenny Russo